Mcnair, Brady Hold Hopes In Their Hands

NFL PLAYOFFS

The Performance Of The Qbs Will Be The Key To Success In The Titans-patriots Game.

January 10, 2004|By John Mullin, Chicago Tribune

Fittingly, the hopes today of Tennessee and New England rest on the shoulder pads of the Titans' Steve McNair and the Patriots' Tom Brady in the only NFL playoff game this weekend featuring two Super Bowl quarterbacks.

Neither team runs the ball exceptionally well, and both teams defend against the run remarkably well, limiting respective opponents to fewer than 87 yards per game. As a result, the importance of the quarterbacks in this AFC conference semifinal is accentuated.

Brady won his ring when he led the Patriots to an upset of the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. McNair finished a yard short of his after the 1999 season when receiver Kevin Dyson was tackled at St. Louis' 1 as time expired in a 23-16 loss to the Rams.

They reached success through decidedly different routes. Brady was a sixth-round pick who played only after Drew Bledsoe was injured, then performed so well that Bledsoe was traded. McNair was the third overall pick in the 1995 draft.

Regardless of how they got there, each man has become the undisputed core of his team. Brady threw 240 passes at home this season without an interception and was third in MVP voting. McNair finished the season sharing the league's MVP award with Peyton Manning and led the NFL in passer rating at 100.4.

Now McNair, who limped through the wild-card victory at Baltimore last Saturday with multiple leg injuries but is practicing this week, is trying to take the Titans to their third AFC championship game in the past five years.

"There is no play he can't make," Brady said of McNair. "He just stands back there, he's like a big bull back there, and if people try to bring him down, he just shakes them off and throws the ball 60 yards to a guy who's double-covered and just squeezes it in. It is pretty amazing to watch."

Brady and McNair will be looking at pass defenses that can be exploited. The Patriots ranked 15th, giving up 202 yards per game. The Titans were one of the worst in the league, ranking 30th and allowing 225 yards.

Of more importance today is that the Titans proved dominant against average quarterbacks and vulnerable against good ones. Of their four losses this season, two came at the hands of Manning and one against Brady, a 38-30 loss at home on Oct. 5.

"[Brady] is very hard to disrupt because unlike most quarterbacks, where they're trying to get the ball to maybe two people, he involves everyone," Titans cornerback Samari Rolle said. "You can see that by the amounts of receptions everybody has."

Tennessee figures the best defense against Brady is to attack him.

"Their line is going to have to pick their quarterback off the ground a lot," Pro Bowl linebacker Keith Bulluck said. "He's going to complete some passes, but we're going to get some hits on him as well."

The Patriots led the NFL with 29 interceptions. One of them was off McNair, one of only nine he threw all season. Ty Law returned it 65 yards for the touchdown that clinched the victory in the Oct. 5 game.

McNair remembers.

"The guy made a great play," he said. "But when you look at it and see the situation we were in, we had a good chance of winning it. When you throw an interception going down for a two-minute drive, that hurts you, puts a knife in your heart. But it happens.